William Shaw - She's leaving home

“No? Nothing important. Yes. A dreadful business. Listen. Must go. Lunch? Of course. Next week maybe. Goodbye.” A man keeping up appearances.

Another number. “Teddy? It’s me. Ah. You’ve heard? Yes. Awful for the hospital. No, he’d always seemed so in control. It’s been a shock for all of us. Quick question…”

Every now and again, the professor poured a little more whisky, turned another page and dialed again.

“What now, Paddy?” said Carmichael.

The professor was talking into the phone: “No. I’ve tried her sister. Not a peep. Yes, of course I’m sure she’ll turn up any second. Of course I’m not worried.”

Breen looked at Carmichael. “I don’t know.”

“No one has seen her,” said Professor Briggs, replacing the receiver. “I don’t understand it. You don’t think she’s in any danger, do you?”

“How much time did she spend with Ezeoke?” asked Breen.

“I’m tired of these innuendoes, Detective Sergeant. She was very committed to the cause. Of course she spent time with him.”

“Where would she have gone?”

“I don’t know,” Briggs said. “I don’t understand.”

Breen and Carmichael sat side by side on a chesterfield; Briggs had not offered them a drink. “Have you checked her clothes?” asked Breen.

“Why would I do that?”

“You’d better go upstairs and see if she’s packed a bag.”

Briggs’s face twitched. He upended the glass into his mouth and stood.

“Do you think she’s OK?” said Carmichael. They sat outside in the car.

“Briggs or Tozer?”

“Either. Both.”

Breen picked up the radio. “Delta Mike Five,” he said. “Requesting a radio car to keep an eye on 19 Russell Square. One, nine, Russell Square. Over.”

It was past eight o’clock. Breen had been up since seven in the morning, but he was wide awake. Today had been relentless, from chasing Ezeoke at the airport, to the discovery of the murdered policeman, to the disappearance of Helen Tozer. After the slow days since returning from Devon, events had cascaded around him, but if anything, his senses were clearer, his shoulders lighter. Tozer might be dead. The thought made him feel physically ill. Yet he felt more alive than he had done in months.

“So maybe this darkie from the shop would have come out and met Mrs. Briggs. Or maybe he had Ezeoke with him in the shop. And they came out. And Tozer didn’t have time to call you.”

“Something like that,” said Breen.

“Delta Mike Five,” said the woman’s voice. “Delta Mike Three on the way. With you in ten to fifteen minutes. Over.”

“So she just went to the car and followed. Because if she’d have gone to get you, she’d have lost him,” said Carmichael.

“Probably. Possibly.”

“This is a mess, isn’t it?” Carmichael lit another Benson amp; Hedges, though one was still smoking in the full ashtray. “I’m not blaming you, but you’ve got to admit. It is, isn’t it?”

Breen said nothing. He looked at the Briggses’ house.

“So. Like I said, what now?”

“It should be here in a minute.”

“Delta Mike Five,” barked the radio.

“That’s us,” said Carmichael.

Breen picked up the handset.

“Thought you’d want to know. They’ve found Constable Tozer’s car, sir. Over.”

“Where?”

“Walthamstow. Over.”

“Walthamstow?”

“Right.”

“And what about Tozer?”

Crackle and fizz. “Hold on.”

Carmichael said, “Oh God.”

The radio went quiet for a while. Carmichael leaned forward and banged his head twice on the steering wheel.

It seemed like an age before the woman came back on the air.

“No sign. Over.”

“Bollocks,” said Carmichael.

Walthamstow was way to the east, miles from where Breen had last seen Tozer.

Carmichael already had the blue light flashing.

“Repeat that address,” Breen said, trying to write the street name down as Carmichael tore away.

The car was parked in a cul-de-sac a little way up Chingford Road from the greyhound track. It was nothing more than a short, rubbish-strewn path leading to allotments. The doors had all been locked and the police had had to smash a quarter-light to get into it. Apart from a lipstick on the dashboard and the wrapper from a packet of Polos, there was nothing of Tozer’s in the car.

“No sign of blood or anything,” said a copper, standing by the car. “No sign of a struggle.”

“That’s good, right?” said Carmichael. Local police had spent the last halfhour knocking on doors in the area, talking to people on the allotments, but no one remembered seeing the police car arrive.

“Did she drive it here, or someone else?” said Carmichael. “Why here? Where were they going?”

Breen and Carmichael drove around the streets themselves, peering at endless postwar terraces and semis, looking over cypress hedges and larch lap fences, hoping to spot something. The streets were empty now. People were at home watching the news on television, or on their way to bed.

“I don’t mind saying, I’m quite worried now,” said Carmichael.

Breen was too; he just wasn’t inclined to say it out loud.

At one point they found a couple of black teenagers riding around on a bike, one sitting on the handlebars. When they asked them if they’d seen a couple of black men with two white women the boys said, “We haven’t seen nothing.”

At around ten they passed another police car coming the other way. Carmichael wound down his window. “Anything?”

“Not a sniff,” said the other cop.

It was pointless just driving around, but the alternative was to go home, which felt like giving up.

At ten-thirty Carmichael parked outside a corner pub and returned with three packets of Bensons and a box of matches. Around eleven, he said, “You hungry?”

Breen had eaten nothing since Tozer had made him toast that morning but he didn’t feel hungry in the slightest.

“I could eat a donkey and still have room for a doughnut,” said Carmichael. “Shall we take a break?”

“I know a place. It’s not far.”

“This better be good,” Carmichael said, parking outside. “It looks like a dive.”

“It’s good,” said Breen.

Aside from a fading Rembrandt print on the yellowing walls, the cafe was normally a plain place. Tonight, though, there were flowers. Some flowers were in jugs, others in old coffee tins, or oil cans. There were red roses and yellow lilies. One bunch of orange delphiniums was propped in a glass measuring jar.

He couldn’t see Joe anywhere. His daughter was behind the counter working with an elderly man Breen didn’t recognize.

“What’s with the flower shop?” Breen asked.

“Joe’s in the Homerton. He had a stroke.”

“Joe? A stroke?”

He noticed now her eyes were red-rimmed and raw. She spooned Nescafe into a couple of cups and held them under an urn. “Night before last. I got a call around three in the morning. One of his regulars came in and he was sitting on the floor down there.” She pointed behind the counter. “He couldn’t speak or move.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She nodded.

“How long had he been like that?”

“Nobody knows.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said again.

“I shut the shop. I had to.”

“Of course.”

“Joe wouldn’t have liked it, but there was only me.”

She opened the counter and walked out to put the coffees on a table in the far corner.

“How is he?” asked Breen when she came back.

She busied herself deliberately wiping the counter. “He’s going to need a bit of looking after.”

“Are we getting some food?” called Carmichael. “Or what?”